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Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy
The mission of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division (NNPD) is to promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology while simultaneously preventing the diversion and misuse of nuclear material and technology through appropriate safeguards and security, and promotion of nuclear nonproliferation policies. To achieve this mission, the objectives of the NNPD are to: Promote policy that discourages the proliferation of nuclear technology and material to inappropriate entities. Provide information to ANS members, the technical community at large, opinion leaders, and decision makers to improve their understanding of nuclear nonproliferation issues. Become a recognized technical resource on nuclear nonproliferation, safeguards, and security issues. Serve as the integration and coordination body for nuclear nonproliferation activities for the ANS. Work cooperatively with other ANS divisions to achieve these objective nonproliferation policies.
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Colin Judge: Testing structural materials in Idaho’s newest hot cell facility
Idaho National Laboratory’s newest facility—the Sample Preparation Laboratory (SPL)—sits across the road from the Hot Fuel Examination Facility (HFEF), which started operating in 1975. SPL will host the first new hot cells at INL’s Materials and Fuels Complex (MFC) in 50 years, giving INL researchers and partners new flexibility to test the structural properties of irradiated materials fresh from the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) or from a partner’s facility.
Materials meant to withstand extreme conditions in fission or fusion power plants must be tested under similar conditions and pushed past their breaking points so performance and limitations can be understood and improved. Once irradiated, materials samples can be cut down to size in SPL and packaged for testing in other facilities at INL or other national laboratories, commercial labs, or universities. But they can also be subjected to extreme thermal or corrosive conditions and mechanical testing right in SPL, explains Colin Judge, who, as INL’s division director for nuclear materials performance, oversees SPL and other facilities at the MFC.
SPL won’t go “hot” until January 2026, but Judge spoke with NN staff writer Susan Gallier about its capabilities as his team was moving instruments into the new facility.
Ray S. Booth
Nuclear Technology | Volume 198 | Number 2 | May 2017 | Pages 217-227
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2017.1299494
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Functionals derived from the finite Laplace transforms of time moments of experimental data are used to fit these data to exponential functions. The functionals provide linear relationships for individually determining parameter values successively. This new and unique fitting method is first derived and then applied to data containing up to four exponentials to demonstrate its capabilities. Advantages of this fitting procedure include the following. (1) Parameters of the fit can be determined from the data region where they are most important by a wide verity of methods, including conventional ones. (2) Fitting algorithms are available that are simple to program; use conventional “stripping techniques”; are quite robust; and have been tested for a wide range in the number of data points, statistical errors, data ranges, and parameter values. (3) Fitting algorithms are included that use the conventional correlation coefficient of two expressions to fit data with even or uneven time intervals. (4) Decay constants and their associated magnitudes are determined separately and independently from different functionals. (5) Each iteration of the fit requires relatively few computations, usually only selected integrals, which can be completed quite rapidly. (6) Parameter errors can be estimated by conventional techniques.